We had some very calm days at the beginning of last week, so we took the dinghy out to Molassas Key on Wednesday and we were joined by a few other boats too.
Some folks were watching something in the water that turned out to be a small nurse shark, maybe only 2-3 feet long, but it was still the first shark we've seen since we've gotten to Florida. I count this as a good thing.
We let Holly swim around some in the shallow water, but she still couldn't touch bottom. We can tell when she is really enjoying herself because she doesn't make an attempt to climb up our legs or claw up the side of the dinghy right away, but swims to and fro, or around in circles.
Our repaired wind generator continues to operate. SALT has informed us that they are working diligently at getting some of our money refunded from the manufacturer due to us having a three year warranty, but I'm not holding my breath. We're just glad to have the unit working again without us having to send it away somewhere and be left without it, not knowing when we'd get it back.
Our friends Don and Kris, along with their daughter Kayte, arrived in For Lauderdale on Wednesday, and on Thursday they came through Marathon, checked into their resort, and then kept going onto Key West, a place they wanted to see. They asked if we wanted to join them, but we didn't leave anything when we were down there in January, plus neither one of us relished the idea of the long car ride. We made plans to see them Friday morning.
For our part, we grilled up the last of the contents of our freezer because we intended on defrosting it before pulling the boat out at the beginning of next week. We had been making a reduction in our refrigerator contents, but still made some shopping trips to stock up our "dry goods". If we get our boat back in the water by next weekend, we'll load up our refrigerated goods in a nice clean refrigerator. If all goes well.
Don called on Friday morning and let us know they were headed over to the marina. We unhooked from our mooring ball and met them at the dock and loaded them all on to the boat. The day was overcast and a bit windy, but we took a long ride out to Bahia Honda Key, a place we've been wanting to check out and just hadn't had a reason. What we found didn't give us a reason to ever go back there. I didn't feel like there would be much in the way of protection from anything but the lightest of winds from the Northeast.
We wanted to go by boat over to Sunset Grille for dinner, but the water is too shallow to get in there with Swing Set. Then we tried getting close to the dock at Lazy Days, but I didn't like the short piers they offered for parking, and a "stern to" method of parking would have left our props exposed to a questionable bottom depth. The list of places to go by boat to dinner seems rather short around here, unless you take a dinghy.
We decided to go back to the mooring ball and hang out for a while. We all finally got hungry, so all five of us loaded ourselves into the dinghy and motored over to the dinghy dock at the City Marina and then got into Don and Kris's rental car and drove to Sunset Grille.
Here's we are with Don while we waited in the bar area for a table out on the pool deck.
Earlier that day, we had spoken with Doug and Jeanne, our friends from Apollo Beach. They were headed for Key West to visit their daughter and son-in-law and said they'd check back with us when they drove through Marathon to see what we were up to.
Doug and Jeanne had seen our post on Facebook and no sooner than we had gotten our table, but who walks into the Sunset Grille, but Doug and Jeanne! In the picture from the left is, of course, Rosie, then Kris, Kayte, Jeanne, Doug and then Don. We all had a good dinner and watched the sunset. It was pretty late when we finally left the restaurant. Doug and Jeanne had gotten a spot at the nearby campground at the last minute, and Don and Kris dropped us off at the City Marina and then to their room at Banana Bay.
Don called on Saturday morning. They had to check out of their room but wanted to spend some more time with us. Believe it or not, we decided to go back to the Sunset Grille again, in order to have a late lunch and soak in their pool.
We had a monster lunch, and all of us but Kayte tried some the "specialty drinks" on the menu. We all got in the pool, along with what seemed like two hundred kids, (to me, anyway), and watched the water clarity diminish as the afternoon progressed. Wonder why?
It was then time for our visitors to go. They were headed back to Fort Lauderdale for a couple of more days, but were starting to talk about staying here in Florida for another week. The weather forecast in Missouri is not a promising one; about a foot of snow was predicted for Sunday.
Don and Kris dropped us off again, for another tearful goodbye. I seem to be getting better at these things, and Rosie is getting worse. I think it has something to do with how many "specialty drinks" we may have had.
Rosie and I went back to the boat, and boy was Holly glad to see us! We took a little nap and got up before sunset. An acoustic "jam session" was planned for that evening at the City Marina Tiki Hut, so we loaded up our chairs, cooler, Holly, and our laundry bag, and took the dinghy over and joined several of our boating neighbors here in the harbor for some music.
Rosie did some laundry in between cocktails. Holly barked and howled, depending on the music. We met some of our boating neighbors that we had only been waving at for the past month. It was a pleasant evening and we had a great time. It had been a long day, however, and it took its tole on us on Sunday morning.
But we had plans! First, it was off to the local Legion hall, where they were serving their last breakfast for the season. For seven or eight bucks, depending on whether or not you got steak, you get coffee, juice, grits, two eggs anyway you want 'em, or a three egg omelet, potatoes, toast, either bacon or sausage, and a pancake! Best deal in town.
Then we walked to Publix and did some more shopping. By the time we got back to the boat, we were both bushed. Our fridge had defrosted while we were gone, so Rosie cleaned the shelves and then loaded up the stuff we had put in our coolers. I touched up some scuff marks on our vinyl seats with some white shoe polish that we bought, and then we just rested for a couple of hours.
We made a short dinghy run over to the office, and to dump some trash. We had to turn in the keys to the bathrooms in order to "check out" of the harbor. Then we took a ride over to the Marathon Boat Yard where we need to be first thing on Monday morning. I wanted to scope out the scene so I wouldn't have any surprises when I pulled in there with the big boat.
We are following "The Trawler Beach House" on their blog. The link is on the home page to this blog. Chuck and Susan are in the Bahamas and if the weather is co-operative, we'll loosely follow their route from Bimini to the Berry Islands and then on to the Exumas.
I've called Boat U.S. and changed our coverage to include the Bahamas, and Turks and Caicos Islands, for only $100 extra per year. They break that down, so for less than $10 per month, we'll be covered over there, and we can changed it back when we get back to the U.S. I had them send a confirmation via email so there is no question about our coverage.
The blog will be dormant until I can get back to our desktop. I wanted to post this entry, even though not a whole lot happened that would interest most people. But it did interest us, and we had a great time, albeit a short time, with good friends.
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